


Suna no Noroi ...

by QueenAshe (queenofdespair)



Series: Naruto: Mitei no kuronikuru [Lit. "Naruto: Untold Chronicles" - One Shot Stories] [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Dark, Gaara is 50 shades of fucked up, Gaara learning to control his powers, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Mixed feelings, One Shot, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rasa done goofed, Rasa no matter how you look at him is a horrid father, Suffering, Sunagakure | Hidden Sand Village, Yashamaru actually does hate him, and yes, couldn't help myself, everyone suffers, politic worldbuilding, suna worldbuilding, this ties into my naruto revision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 06:20:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20335492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofdespair/pseuds/QueenAshe
Summary: Gaara is the unwanted, cursed child Rasa regrets having.So much so that he tries to have him killed.These are about the moments leading up to and during/after it.---"A wound of a heart is different from a flesh wound. Unlike a flesh wound, there are no ointments to heal it, and there are times when they never heal."-Yashamaru.





	Suna no Noroi ...

The first time Gaara killed someone, was accidental.

He didn't know.

In fact, he wasn't even _aware_ of it until he was a few years older.

But he in fact, was born a killer.

Because the first life he's taken was that of the woman who gave birth to him.

* * *

There's blood everywhere, and the lump of flesh the Suna medic-nin removed from Kurura's weakened body was also covered in it. Something was _wrong,_ horribly wrong.

The baby was smaller than it should have been. It was the size of an average adult's palm.

He was premature and frail-looking.

Kurura's life force was fading at an alarming rate.

She requested to hold her child, and name it.

There wasn't alot of time for Rasa to process what happened. 

The baby didn't even get to be held by her for a full _minute_ before her line went flat. From there, everything turned black, and he couldn't breathe. He didn't even register Chiyo's hand on his shoulder. 

He couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, didn't_ want_ to breathe. His wife was gone, and it was all his fault.

At least she got to name their unexpected new family member.

* * *

Gaara was three and four when he killed once more.

It was again, by accident.

He just wanted to play with the kids in the neighborhood.

He thought if he smiled, that'd put everyone to ease, but it made them scream even louder.

Why did they run away from him?

Why did they call him a monster?

_Why, why, why, why, why._ He always asked himself.

_Why me?_

* * *

"Lord Kazekage, it's about your youngest."

Rasa turned around to face Yashamaru.

The Fourth Kazekage's face was long, and worn. His eyes had grown sharp and hard, harder than anything made from the Land of Iron. "What about _it _?"

Not a "him", it.

Yashamaru swallowed a protest and bit on his lower lip. Feelings aside, that was the Kazekage's _son_. How much hatred and regret can a father throw on a child before they're both consumed?

_So much._

Too much, too much, too much, too much.

"He's still having ... problems controlling the Sand Demon Shukaku." His shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast. "The cases are getting more and more extreme.." He muttered the last part quietly.

Rasa's dark brown, almost pitch black eyes narrowed at the files on his desk. Scrolls littered his desk, along with papers tucked away neatly in files, some of them covered in suspicious dark brown splatters. He didn't need to read them to see what they were about.

_More_ murders.

More shit for Rasa to try to deal with, on top of a fucking shitty economy he _also _yet had to find the solution for.

He scowled.

So much.

It was all so much. Too much, actually.

Again, he was reminded of the day of Gaara's birth as he looked up at Yashamaru.

(Why the _fuck _did he have to look so much like Kurura? Oh right, identical twins.)

Yashamaru could see the anger and hatred in his Kage's face.

His frustration.

Sometimes he felt like he made things worse.

He felt heavy.

_Heavier than Rasa's Gold Dust._

* * *

When he was six, it was clear to Rasa that Gaara had become too dangerous. The death toll was in the hundreds (and still rising). The paperwork was piling up faster than a high-level Jonin could use the _Body Flicker Technique_.

What a waste of a child, he thought.

"The demon is a curse on us all." He decided, once and for all. He was sick of looking at him, sick of teaching him ninjutsu (the little shit was a fast learner for someone that couldn't figure out _why he was so hated_ by all those around him), and sick of having to deal with traumatized and grieving parents, siblings, relatives, villagers who couldn't stand Gaara anymore than _he_ couldn't.

Whatever heart he had when Kurura was around had shriveled up and died, finally.

He was colder than the Land of Iron's snow-filled wonderland.

His temper, hotter than Sunagakure's sun.

And unfeeling and unmovable as Iwagakure's stone.

It was his other two kids, who-were-still-failures-but-not-quite-Gaara-level-failures that brought this to his attention. Kankuro was unable to eat for a month straight, because his baby brother _almost fucking killed him_, and he accidentally saw more of Shukaku than he was supposed to. Instead of being understanding, Rasa roared at him for being "spineless."

Kankuro yelled back at him, and vented out his frustration.

Too many times, it'd turn into shouting matches, with both voices being similar, way too similar. (Damn it, why did he have to look _and_ sound like him?)

Temari was the shield between him and Rasa. (Yes, physically too.)

She had to be, she was the eldest child.

God bless her sweet, strong heart that eventually went bitter and hard.

So hard.

Too hard.

Too, too, too, too hard.

The bastard didn't even notice how distant she became.

Nor did he notice her soft crying at night because damn it, she was hurting and had nobody to turn to because _she was the eldest and had to be level-headed one. _

Often times this happened, until it didn't anymore, and she became someone else entirely; someone cold, tough and cynical.

_Unrecognizable._

Kankuro noticed.

And this is why _he _grew to be belligerent and disrespectful with a mouth that would make a certain Jashinist _blush_.

Sometimes, Rasa would get the faintest inkling that something was up, but it wouldn't happen until much later when she was older.

And when she _was_, Rasa wanted to die all over again, because dear God, _Temari looked like his late wife too_.

It was like a cruel twist of fate and irony even, that Kurura came to haunt him threefold from that moment on.

_(There was fucking blood everywhere.)_

The Fourth Kazekage saw red again.

This time, the red was of _anger._

** _He had enough._ **

* * *

Gaara doesn't remember much from the first attempt, but what he does is the following:

Fire, smoke and explosive tags.

It was in his bedroom as he was playing the toys his Uncle brought him. What kept him safe was his mysterious sand that acted of it's own accord.

It's own accord because shortly after it formed a dome, the sand divided itself and formed spikes, impaling his attacker through the head, neck, and stomach. Stuck to the wall for a moment before the body slid out of its sand restraints, and slumped to the ground. The sand crumbled, but not before consuming the bone, and brain matter that was previously smeared on the white walls of his Uncle's house.

His existence was marked by red, and only red. The red of life.

The red of death.

Plasma.

Crimson.

Sanguine.

Blood.

He screamed bloody murder, and Yashamaru had to carry him away, pretending to not know of the Sand ANBU who was sent to destroy him.

What's worse was Gaara's method of self-defense scared him.

_And where fear is, hatred isn't too far behind._

* * *

The second attempt came a few months after, on Gaara's seventh birthday.

It was the same.

Fire, smoke and explosive tags.

But this time, they were hidden in his birthday cake. (The cake he'd been baking all day with Yashamaru, mind you.)

Multiple kunai came flying in, shattering the windows. Gaara turned around, to see his sand consume the pointy object that would have killed him, had it made contact in between his eyes as it was supposed to. Sand be damned, he ducked and cowered under a table.

Yashamaru once again appeared swiftly to wipe his tears, hug and smile sweetly in his face.

He even asked if he was okay.

He tried his best to console the shaking, trembling boy who didn't know much about the world. (Boy, not a "thing". Not yet.)

Gaara was scared.

Very scared.

Why was someone trying to hurt him?

_Who _was trying to hurt him?

Why?

_Why, why, why, why, why, _Gaara pleaded, a bit upset, a bit angry and lot more aggressively_._

* * *

The third and fourth attempts went the same; but with varying would be murder-weapons.

Third was with a poison needle hidden in his food, and the fourth was with a group of three Suna-ANBU. He didn't quite see them (he didn't need to, the sand was _alive)_, but he heard them.

He heard bone crack, shudder and whimper under the pressure of his sand.

Gaara was still seven.

What an unlucky number.

Unlucky, unlucky, unlucky.

Gaara would come to hate the number seven. It was the number of assassination attempts that year. 

And yes, his age also factored into that hatred.

He eventually stopped talking altogether. He became deathly silent. _Withdrawn. _

"......"

Yashamaru saw that his nephew's eyes were semi-empty.

Blank.

Blank, blank, blank, so blank.

They were almost soulless.

He really wish he didn't have to do this to him.

He was just a boy after all.

He didn't deserve all of this.

_Any_ of this.

He could still retain some of his innocence, Yashamaru thought.

He could say "no" to all of this right now, and undergo punishment for disobeying orders. He could give him real love, and not this fake, surface shit he'd been feeding Gaara.

"Surface shit" because he was starting to see why the villagers feared him.

"Surface shit" that wasn't really "surface shit", but "deep shit", because the truth was that Yashamaru couldn't pretend he cared about this boy as much as he used to in the beginning.

He couldn't keep lying to himself.

_He's just a boy, not a Demon._ He told himself. 

_But is he really?_ A voice whispered in the man's head._ Can you really call him a boy after he took your only family from you?_

_After he took your sanity and peace of mind from you?_

_You can't even sleep anymore. _

_You're scared that he'll kill you next, _his head taunted._  
_

_Is he really a boy? _(A boy, but "barely". Leaning towards a "thing", but not completely.)

_Almost soulless._

_Why me, _Yashamaru thought.

_Why, why, why, why, why, why?_

* * *

The first time Gaara killed someone on purpose was at the end of that year.

It was not a quick kill, sadly.

Nor was it satisfying.

Mostly because he knew who the assassin was, this time around.

When he unmasked him, he thought it was a cruel prank.

A joke.

But nothing was funny.

Nothing was especially funny when he took in his Uncle's crushed bones, and splattered blood against the stucco.

Nothing was funny when Gaara looked into a matching pair of blank, completely soulless violet eyes that looked way too much like his birthgiver's. (Birthgiver and not "mother", what is a mother? What is a father? What is family? What does family mean to someone who grew up in damn near complete isolation?).

Yashamaru was just a man related to Gaara at this point.

A man who took care of him.

A man who gave a shit about him.

A man who _betrayed_ him.

A man who, in his dying breaths with desperation, opened his jacket, and commanded his tags to explode. (Which they did, but_ weakly. He didn't have enough chakra._)

A man who just asked him in the absolutely worse yet kindest way,

**"to please, just die."**

_With a goddamn smile on his face._

And, oh, did Gaara_ die._

_Just not physically._

_"I get it now. I am... alone. Completely, and utterly alone. _

_I will love only myself. _

_And fight for only myself. _

_Nothing and nobody else matters than my own furthered existence._

_That can only come with the spilling of blood._

_I will not die, or cease to exist._

_As long there as there are people to kill.... _

_I will never stop existing. **Ever.**" _

* * *

** _ "You are named Gaara, a self-loving demon. You were not loved by me, or anyone, including your mother. In fact, she didn't even want you."_ **

His Uncle's head was half blown off -- literally half-- as the left side was still flesh, and color, the right side being nothing but brain matter, and melted, burned ash.

The smile he wore was still there.

Well, half of it at least.

His torso was riddled with burn marks which bubbled angrily, showing skin, bone and pink meat. Clothes were melted together with his skin in an unholy matrimony.

Gaara stared at it in silence for a long while, unscathed and untouched, thanks to his living sand.

It was all he could do before he let himself scream in agony.

Anger.

Pain.

_Loathing_.

_**Resentment**_.

The rest of Yashamaru's body was never found.

_ **"She gave you that name because of the hatred she had in her heart." ** _

Neither were the countless other assassins that sought to take his life, under orders of the Fourth Kazekage.

_**"The sand that protects you... is not her love, but of her unbridled rage. You are the incarnation of Sand. You are the vessel of the Sand Demon, Shukaku."** _

Rasa used to think he was a waste of a child. And he was.

_ **"Your mother hated you."** _

However, with each attempt, he grew smarter.

Stronger.

Cunning.

Deadlier.

_ **"I hate you."** _

He was almost proud of him.

_Almost. _

There were still paperwork piling up on his desk, of death certificates he needed to sign, and reports of his progress to read.

But for each of those were two or three letters which praised the Fourth for sending in his _living weapon_, his tool of mass destruction. He was a good little shinobi killer, which got the Village money. Truces and new deals opened up. (Nobody wanted to die by Gaara's hand, he figured out by reading such reports.)

By the time he knew it, Gaara had shown mastery over his sand.

So Rasa stopped sending assassins.

Gaara, his greatest mistake, now had a use.

Suna was saved economically, for the most part, by the thing with no value:

The Curse of the Sand.

* * *

Tears ran down the man's eyes.

Gaara stared half-numb, half-curious.

He wondered what tears tasted like.

A curious tilt of his head saw some of his spiky red bangs sweep across his eyebrowless face. The kanji he etched onto the side of his forehead long ago, concealed.

The man was saying something, something about mercy, something about being spared.

It was a foreign concept to Gaara of the Desert.

"P-please..." The man wheezed. "I have a son and daughter. I-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because the twelve, almost thirteen year old closed his fist.

Fresh splatters of red stained Gaara's face.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head in orgasmic pleasure as he relished the kill.

And he touched, touched, touched his face. Touched himself. (It was second nature to him now.)

Licked it off his lips and fingers.

Once more, he felt _alive. _

This was who he was now.

* * *

His existence was marked by red, and only red.

The red of death.

Blood.

**Author's Note:**

> Suna no Noroi translates to "Curse of the Sand."
> 
> I wrote this because I couldn't sleep.


End file.
